A Theological Context

Abstract

Modern culture in the West erupts from out of a religious crisis. This crisis provided the background against which the mechanistic and objectifying view of the body and nature appears as dominant themes. In the Middle Ages, Trinitarian theology and Christology informed a relational conception of the cosmos, in which the body was experienced as sacred, infused with supernatural grace through the incarnation, and intrinsically harmonious with nature. The nominalist revolt against Scholasticism led to a radical change in Western culture’s understanding of God, nature, personhood, and the body. Fundamental to this shift in worldview was a transformation of the Medieval view of the body as sacred into the profane body described by modern anatomy.